Forma parte ya del lenguaje cotidiano denominar Zona Cero a aquel espacio (físico o no) que ha sido objeto de un acontecimiento de tal magnitud que, automáticamente, pone el contador a cero en la historia particular de ese sitio (físico o no): primero para que no se olvide y, segundo, para que todo pueda ser reformulado desde ese nuevo punto de partida. El momento actual de crisis generalizada puede convertirse (si no lo ha sido ya) en la Zona Cero para la arquitectura en nuestro país: un espacio de tiempo, concreto, a partir del cual nos veremos obligados a buscar nuevos caminos. / Forms part of everyday language to call Zero Zone to that space (physical or not) that has undergone an event of such magnitude that automatically sets the counter to zero in the particular history of that site (physical or not): first so that is not forgotten and, second, so that everything can be reformulated from this new starting point. The present time of general crisis can become (if it has not already been) at Zero Zone for Architecture in our country: a space of time, concrete, from which we will be forced to seek new ways.

/ As in the best novels, good
buildings can, also, evoke at the same time to tell; opening the doors of our
memory to the search of past sensations, memories and emotions. The brand new
winners of the Spanish Architecture Award 2013 (awarded ex aequo with MGM
Andalusian), the Navarre team of tandem Carlos Pereda Iglesias and Óscar Pérez
Silanes -Pereda Perez Architects- bring to these pixelated pages his third
work: a single house in Villarcayo (Burgos); an elaborate piece with the two
preceding -the award-winning La Milagrosa School and the footbridge in the
Bastion of Labrit, both in Pamplona- they offer us a quick trip for his
interesting study trajectory.

/ Playing with verbs and with the
permission of the authors and their clients, I would change "to
evoke" by "to call". Imagine that, and with the excuse of the
work presented to us bellow, we could gather, around this piece and just for a
moment, to different architects, loved and admired teachers right now and
forever, that at the eyes of who writes, they are somehow present through what
the Navarre have built. Certainly, and behind the floor-ceiling liquid glass
drawn in the main entrance, we would find the imposing figure of Mies van der
Rohe, Havane cigar in hand, explaining to thousands of disciples, that we would
have been to that impossible meeting, the benefits of the modulation and the
rigor in the construction, and how "poetry" is possible when the materials
are used intelligently. Rather, on the other hand, is evident in the house in
which we are imaginarily.

/ On the large concrete carpet forming
the raised platform that invites the access, we can see the nervous Louis I.
Kahn figure who, sure tell us the vicissitudes of one of his masterpieces: the
Salk Institute in La Jolla (California ) where, as in this work, the terse
concrete planes seem softened, almost domesticated, for the warmth of the wood
panels and glass.

/ From time greats we would have to
convene, among many others, the Portuguese master Eduardo Souto de Moura, who
probably we would find a moment outside smoking a cigarette and who would tell
us about his deep admiration for Mies and how he has continued the footsteps of
the great German master in a dozen residences, many of them masterly, which,
like Villarcayo, rise gently from the ground and they are defined in the air by
the accuracy of his oblong and compact volume.

/
Finally, and this time no names, sure they would come a handful of Central
European architects -Swiss and Austrian, mainly- that as the Navarre team
"cook" with precision materials: care concrete walls (which in the
case of the Swiss achieve virtuosity), polished floors with cementitious
matrix, delicate wood skins (applied to outer and inner) that they draw
interiors where the view seems to be slipping to go to a big hole that frames
the outside landscape; behind the glass we can see as far, the figures of the
three great masters

/ The starting point of the project
answers to two clear situations: in one hand the plot is located in a suburban
colony not yet consolidated, in the outskirts of Villarcayo, which does not
have any significant value and with very few constraints but legal ones, linked
to the accomplishment of the current standards, which mainly defined the
heights, suitability for building and setbacks. And in the other hand, the
owners, a young family identified with the contemporary architecture, they
defined two questions: a house with just ground floor was a requirement in
order to maximize his relationship with the garden and the project had to be
unequivocally within a limited budget. Hence, the proposal, should answer, over
other premises, to the “optimism” and to the “optimization” which were demanded
by the owners, supposing those as the starting point, its “real context”.

/ The program, relatively common, was defined
with accuracy by the clients, it was divided basically in two categories: in
one hand, a big sitting room and terrace with direct access to the garden and
in the other hand, the definition of the most privates spaces, annexed, consisting
in a main bedroom incorporating a bathroom, besides two bedrooms, another
bathroom and a space for their children to study and play games, additionally
kitchen and garage.

/ At the same time, the plot, with a small
size, topographically flat, with a substantially rectangular shape and with a
single side having access to the street, the orientation north-south coincided
with the diagonal, it does not exist any other remarkable characteristics of
the physical environment.

/ The
project is aligned with the conditions and the taste of the customer, it
expected the resolution of a modern space, domestic container, taking advantage
of the pleasure provided by the close relationship with an own outdoor space
and facilitated by the horizontal of a single floor. In short, the project
seeks an adequate contemporary partnership between those spaces as something
intrinsic to the way of life in a single family home versus different
typologies.

/ The volume of the house has a compact
development, assuring in such manner an adjusted proposal. The project is
defined with a “no isotropic” organization seeking a situation which make its
own difference in both directions. In one hand, blind on the sides where the
plot is adjusted eliminating in this sense the limit of the house rejecting the
presence of the nearest dwellings and keeping open both front sides,
hierarchizing and qualifying the garden in two spaces of different character
which allow in a direct way, to take advantage of the sun.

/ The proposal shows a very clear organization
of the program, almost synthetic, allowing to define as a scheme: the most
private spaces are accommodated close to both blind concrete sides all along
its length, making free the space in between, as an open “living” to the
gardens, protected by the filter of the porch and seeking the orientation
East_West and the close relationship with them.

/ The more private auxiliary areas are
defined, with clear trace, with compact limits and compressed to the minimum,
to make available as communal as much space as possible, translating the whole
in a simple and free volume of contemporary figuration which suited with
coherence to the requirements of the owners.

/ Two different types of spaces are defined;
in one hand, those of the central space, which are retracted and winning in
depth, defining the porch as habitable spaces which allow this glance, deep but
discreet, of the outdoor space. In the other hand, those which are practiced on
the compact limits of the auxiliary spaces, solved with “individual” character,
scattered on the parquetted surface and practiced to the shutters remaining
agglutinated at the pattern of those wooden panels, as material formula to not
disturb the purity of the global volume.

/ The different spaces of the central area,
partially built without carpentry, make in several situations and perspectives,
difficult to notice the seam between interior and exterior, remaining in that
manner definitely tied in a direct way.

/ The physical: the plot is on a flooding area
and with very little colonization, because of that it was advised to elevate
the house. The spatial: the height difference allowed the pleasant dominant
perspective from the interior to the garden, with innumerable references of the
modern architecture. And the conceptual: the precise volume takes the ownership
of the site as a pavilion, appears put on the garden, wishing to reveal its relationship
with the people who lives over the space which is accepted, in summary
identifying this paradox its “real context”.

/ The materials which define the volume,
concrete and wood, are extended to the interior qualifying the domestic
conditions, providing them with a natural comfort characterized by the warm
aspect but at the same time dry of the materials. The continuity of the
material and the texture of those elements change the perception of the spaces
and transform the fact of living in a singular experience, keeping far of the
popular and according with the type of live which pretended the ownership.

/ Constructively, the concrete which defines
the global volume, as an artifice, is incorporated in the interior defining the
plane of floor and ceiling as exercise of minimums, with simplicity and
coherence followed from the origin of the project being identified with the
taste of the formal simplicity.

/ The furniture of the central space, being
incorporated to the architecture is transformed as part of it, works as
diaphragm which guides the way to the privacy of the bedrooms and at the same
time allows stretching the living space until the limits of the private.

/ Finally, the careful study of the lighting,
defines different scenographies, being designed to not disturb the purity of
the space. In the same manner, the volume and the garden are inspired with the
same criteria.

COMAS PONT ARQUITECTES

WAN AWARDS / 21 for 21 shortlist announced

PÍLDORAS / PILLS: LACATON&VASSAL

ESCUELA DE ARQUITECTURA, NANTES: Como una herramienta pedagógica, el proyecto cuestiona la práctica tradicional de la Arquitectura, así como sus normas, las tecnologías y los distintos procesos de desarrollo de la misma / SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, NANTES: Like a pedagogical tool, the project questions the program and the practices of the school as much as the norms, technologies and its own process of elaboration.